The public unveiling of the first iTunes phone was scheduled for today, but …

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Today was supposed to be the day that Motorola showed the public its new "iTunes phone," the Motorola E790, but Motorola pulled the plug on the event at the last minute, leaving many wondering what's up. According to the Chicago Tribune, Motorola is being pressured by wireless carriers, but why? The truth of the matter is that no one knows, and Motorola is being tight lipped. Could it be that Motorola has rushed another flawed phone to market?

The company killed the unveiling after discussions late Tuesday night with "our operators," said Monica Rohleder, a Motorola spokeswoman. Motorola discussed "the logistics of this product with our carriers across the globe," she said. The result: "We decided to wait to announce it when everybody is in sync with it."

No one knows who put a stop to the launch, or even why, but it's a bit of an embarrassment for Motorola, as they have been giving private, closed-door previews of their first iTunes phone in preparation for the launch. It must be frustrating for the company, as the original announcement put the first fruits of this Apple-Motorola collaboration as arriving in early 2005.

Little is known about the first iTunes phone from reliable channels. Add-on memory cards will apparently boost phone capacity to "100 songs," which is ambiguous-speak for 512MB of storage (if I'm guessing correctly). If true, this is a serious limitation. In a world where 2GB SD cards are rolling out, why weaken a device by giving it such feeble storage? Samsung, for instance, has already released a phone sporting a 1.5GB hard drive in some markets.

The E790 iTunes phone is expected to be available to customers this summer, but most people are more curious to see the phones coming later, including the Motorola ROKR, which is being jointly designed by Motorola and Apple. Aside from being slated for sometime this year, there's no reliable information on when the latter phone will arrive.

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Ken Fisher
Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation. Emailken@arstechnica.com//Twitter@kenfisher